Three separate yeti sightings reported in Siberia in recent weeks

Local fishermen and an official in the Kemerovo region of Siberia have reported three separate sightings of yetis. This is not the first time sightings have been reported in this region of Siberia.

Siberian Times reports a sighting occurred last month near Myski village. The fishermen said they saw the "yetis" from a boat on a river. According to the men, at first they mistook the mysterious figures for bears and then humans.

According to Siberian Times, a local fisherman Vitaly Vershinin, said: "We shouted to them - do you need help? They just rushed away, all in fur, walking on two legs, making their way through the bushes and with two other limbs, straight up the hill." Vershinin added, "It could not be bears, as the bear walks on all-fours, and they ran on two... so then they were gone."

The Daily Mail reports the second sighting occurred on the bank of the Mras-Su River, several days after the first. The fisherman who reported the second sighting, said: "We saw some tall animals looking like people. Our binoculars were broken and did not let us see them sharply. We waved at the animals but they did not respond, then quickly ran back into the forest, walking on two legs. We realised that they were not in dark clothes but covered by dark fur. They did walk like people."

According to a local government official Sergei Adlyakov, a forestry inspector reported yet another sighting at the Shorsky National Park. Siberia Times reports the sighting occurred in Tashtagolski district close to the border with Khakassia. The inspector said: "The creature did not look like a bear and quickly disappeared after breaking some branches of the bushes."

According to the Daily Mail, Russia's top yeti expert Igor Burtsev, head of the International Center of Hominology, described the sightings as "significant." He said: "We shall explore new areas, to the north from the usual places yetis have been seen previously."

Burtsev vehemently denied allegations that reports of sightings are designed to draw tourists to the area.

Following an expedition last year, Burtsev announced that a team of international experts discovered samples of yeti hair. DNA findings have not been released, but it is claimed tests are being done. According to Siberian Times, the samples were found in the Azasskaya Cave.

Burtsev claims yetis are probably the missing link between Neanderthals and modern man. He estimates that a population of about 30 live in Russia's Kemorovo region. The Sun reports he said: "We have good evidence of the yeti living in our region, and we have heard convincing details from experts elsewhere in Russia and in the US and Canada. The description of the habits of the Abominable Snowmen are similar from all over the world."

Last November, yeti hunters claimed they discovered nests of the yeti in Siberia. The hunters reportedly found trees twisted into an arch in an area where sightings of yetis have been reported. Siberian Times reports that biologist John Bindernagel, said, "We didn't feel like the trees we saw in Siberia had been done by a man or another mammal. Twisted trees like this have also been observed in North America and they could fit in with the theory that Bigfoot makes nests."

According to the Daily Mail, the "first accounts of Yetis emerged before the 19th century from Buddhists who believed that the creature inhabited the Himalayas. They depicted the mysterious beast as having similarities to an ape and carrying a large stone as a weapon while making a whistling sound."

Digital Journal reported last May that a joint project between Oxford University and Switzerland's Lausanne Museum of Zoology plans to study organic remains claimed to belong to alleged cryptid creatures believed to be yetis. According to Digital Journal, Wolfson College, Oxford is asking for "samples of hair and teeth of cryptids," as part of an investigation of the genetic relationship between "our own species Homo sapiens and other hominids."

Digital Journal reports that yetis are the most widely reported cryptids. The mystery of the yeti was popularized in the West when an expedition to Mount Everest returned with photographs of giant footprints in the snow in 1951. There have also been claims of sightings of yetis in North America, where they are known as Bigfoot or Sasquatch.

According to Digital Journal, Wired.com reports that an expert said theories "as to species identification [of yetis] vary from surviving collateral hominid species, such as Homo neanderthalensis or Homo floresiensis (Denosivans), to large primates like Gigantopithecus widely thought to be extinct, to as yet unstudied primate species or local subspecies of black and brown bears."